The Alaska Democratic Party recently obtained the electronic General Election Management System (GEMS) database for the 2004 elections by suing the state's Division of Elections in State Superior Court. The Division of Elections had refused for more than nine months to release the public records, but did so late last month just before a hearing was scheduled to begin in the case. An examination of the database reveal that modifications were made to the database on July 12 and July 13, 2006. On October 6, the Democratic Party filed new public records requests asking for a copy of the GEMS database as it existed before the changes made in July, 2006, and for the name and affiliation of each person who did any manual modification to the 2004 General Election GEMS database at any time, what data that person entered manually, and why those changes were made or those data were entered manually. The Division of Elections responded that they would not meet the Democratic Party's request. The following letter was sent to the Whitney Brewster, Director of the Alaska Division of Elections on October 12, 2006.

Dear Ms. Brewster:

I have received your letter of Oct. 10 denying the Alaska Democratic Party's request for public records, in which you state that you are unable to provide a copy of the 2004 GEMS General Election database as it existed before July 2006. Your letter further states that no public records exist, other than the audit log already produced, that would show the name and affiliation of each person who did any manual modification to the 2004 General Election GEMS database at any time, what data that person entered manually, and why those changes were made or those data were entered manually. You state that the request for public records is denied because the "requested records have either already been produced or do not exist."

Your response raises a lot of questions and indicates serious security breeches. Concerning the 2004 GEMS database as it existed before July 12, 2006, are you saying that you have only one copy of this database, which was subject to entry and potentially to manipulation by Division employees, and that no separate copy was kept in archives in a secure location? Why was an accurate, unmodified copy of the database not retained as a record of the election? Were any prior copies of this database destroyed?

With respect to your explanation that the GEMS audit log entries for July 12 and July 13 were the result of the Election Program Manager "selecting and deselecting the same box within a reporting set on July 12 and vote center on July 13," we question how the action you describe could result in the entries shown in the audit log. In order to test the explanation you have provided, we propose that the individual who undertook these actions within the file (whose name you did not provide, in spite of our specific request for this information), describe in detail the exact steps that were taken so that we can determine whether it is possible to independently replicate the July 12 and July 13 audit log entries.

Your response provides no specific explanation for the 293 manual entries made in the month following the election. You state that changes manually entered into the database were reviewed prior to the election being certified. If this is so, how can there be no records or files that show what these changes were and why data were entered manually? Please look again and produce the relevant records. If such records existed at one time but have been destroyed, when and why were these records destroyed?

We understand that under federal law you are required to keep records related to a federal election for at least two years. If an unmodified version of this file was not kept for two years, federal law could have been violated.

In summary, the lack of security for this database, the failure to maintain a correct and unmodified copy of the database, and the lax record keeping regarding modification of the database, is unacceptable and irresponsible.

We will await your response before deciding what further action to take.

In light of these issues, we request that an observer from the Democratic Party, as well as any other political party that so desires, be present and allowed to observe the manual entries and changes made to the GEMS database following the November 7, 2006 elections.